Where the Missing Arrow Lands
by Wandrian
Summary: The rivers of the Shire produce many things—fish and watercress and throwing stones, but never an unconscious, bloodied girl. When Gandalf the Grey discovers her upon his return to Bag End, not even he knows what to presume. But as events unfold, something else occurs entirely for one dwarf, and much more unexpectedly. Kili/OC.


"_Home is now behind you. The world is ahead_."  
-Gandalf the Grey

— **Where the Missing Arrow Lands** —  
(Chapter One: "_Something Unexpected_")

"Dead, I tell you. Completely without life."

Gandalf the Grey paused on the pathway leading towards a certain hobbit hole and raised a silvered, bushy eyebrow to his left. Afternoon light fell onto the whole of the Shire, casting the verdant green hills with a pleasant yellowish haze. The wide brim of his hat blocked the majority of the sun from his eyesight, yet he still narrowed his steely gaze onto the two hobbits that stood at the shore of The Water.

"Without life? But her chest is rising and falling!"

"Stop staring at her chest! How uncouth of you, brother dearest. Oh, if only mummy were alive to hear your words. Unbecoming, she would say! Unbecoming, _indeed_."

Gandalf suppressed an amused smile at this, taking a moment to ponder which was more humorous: a hobbit being admonished over glancing at a bosom, or a hobbit finding itself harried over the mere word 'adventure'. Still, with all of his years in Middle-Earth and his distinguished wisdom, there was no possible way the wizard could have known that said adventure was just about to become a little more colorful.

He peered up the pathway that would eventually lead him to Bag End, and could detect the broad silhouettes of two dwarves on ponies fading into the Shire's scenic horizon. For a moment the wizard found himself in the rarity of being torn between two curiosities, and faltered a step. He pressed his lips together and deliberated quickly: Join the dwarves and see how Bilbo was faring under the weight of playing impromptu host to an amassing gaggle of dwarves, or to take a moment and squelch his inquisitiveness over what had the two hobbits flustered about.

In the end, however, Gandalf decided that two flustered hobbits was a little better than one, and proceeded to adjust his robe, straighten his posture, and reposition the grasp on his old wooden staff. He stepped off the beaten path and onto plush greensward, careful not to completely take the hobbits by surprise.

"Primula and Fastolph Peatfingers of Brockenborings," he greeted cordially. "Just what sort of tomfooleries have you two gotten yourself into?"

The hobbits in question jumped at the sound of his voice, blinked up at him for all of two seconds before looking back at the other, clearly trading some abrupt and unspoken agreement.

Primula and Fastolph Peatfingers of Brockenborings were twins with tufts of bright red hair and a penchant for finishing each other's sentences. They were timeworn hobbits now, who had been thought of as rather peculiar even as young things scuttling about the last time Gandalf had laid eyes upon them. The duo had been known for making odd remarks about even odder things, perpetually on the same brainwave. Their faces were now wizened, their bodies so corpulent from years of skilled baking that folds of skin had blossomed underneath their eyes and chins and cheeks, looking more like flesh-hued heads of talking cabbages than anything else.

Gandalf quirked his mouth at the thought, and noted the lavish spread of a picnic before him, clearly something the hobbits had meticulously organized in the early morning hours, but was now dutifully forgotten. Instead, their attention was fixed on the very strange sight of a small, drenched body that had washed ashore.

Fastolph nudged his sister, peering back at Gandalf with a beady eye. "A stranger, sister."

Primula waved him off. "That's no stranger, Fastolph. That's a wizard."

"A wizard? Nonsense. Haven't seen a wizard in about seventy years."

"Fastolph," Primula chided. "That's Gandalf."

The brother cocked his head to the side, confused. "Gandalf?"

"Yes," she reaffirmed primly. "_Gandalf_. Are you going to repeat everything I say?"

"Are you?"

"But I haven't."

"But you will."

"If you say so."

"I do."

"Wonderful."

Much to the wizard's amusement, Fastolph tapered his eyes until they became mere slits; he couldn't decipher whether the hobbit was curious or suspicious of him. "What's a Gandalf?"

Primula pointed a chubby finger behind. "That's a Gandalf, Fastolph. No need to stare."

Fastolph looked all the more bemused, then revelation erupted on his face, and grinned toothily. "Oh! _Gandalf_. With the fantastic fireworks, right?"

Primula was still staring down at the body. "Right."

Gandalf sighed wearily, taking a step forward to peer down at the riverbed. He immediately hitched a breath, realizing himself that there was, indeed, a body before the two hobbits. _How unexpected_, he thought to himself, clutching his staff more tightly as he bent his angular frame forward to gain a better look. His brows furrowed, nearly rendering him sightless by the abundance of his eyebrows, but his sagacious blue eyes captured every aspect of the body that had washed ashore.

"By the Valar," he muttered in near disbelief, "What have you two discovered?"

Fastolph piped up immediately, pointing downward. "We found a girl!"

Primula nodded sagely. "Yes, we found a girl."

Fastolph nudged her in the side, grinning once more. "You repeated me. I _told_ you."

Gandalf's sharp gaze roamed the length of the body, eyes swiftly analyzing and never settling on any certain place for more than a moment. His breath hitched again, all the more disbelieving and almost dumbfounded.

It was a mere girl, of all things. Small, but not quite as undersized as a hobbit. She was thin with the appearance of someone who had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time, and there were various shallow lesions across her face, which gave the wizard not only the impression that she had encountered troubled times, but the bruises along her knuckles read that she was more wild-hearted than timid; there were stark callouses on what fingertips he could see. Dark, earthy hair fanned the riverside, revealing small but very tapered ears. His brows furrowed more.

"How…" Gandalf began, peering even closer, musing aloud in his deep, mystical voice. "How did she get here?"

Fastolph, in the wizard's periphery, wiped at the beads of sweat on his brow, and shrugged. "How did _you_ get here?"

"Me?" Primula mistook who her twin was speaking to, and sounded aghast. "The same as you, Fastolph. There once came a time when mummy and pappy loved each other so much that they —"

"_Silence_," Gandalf admonished rather sharply, too disquieted with the girl to notice otherwise. "The both of you."

The wizard had yet to look away from the girl, and suddenly his hand shot out and pressed his fingers along her neck. A moment later his withdrew his hand, exhaling deeply, the multitudes of wrinkles on his face deepening in thought.

"Is she dead?" Primula asked rather excitedly.

Gandalf shook his head, still very pensive. "No, merely unconscious."

Fastolph narrowed his gaze on the girl. "Who is she?"

"No, no," his twin corrected. "It's a _what_ is she?"

"Why, she's a girl."

Primula scoffed. "Of course she's a girl, but what manner of girl is she? A she-dwarf? She-elf?"

"Well," Fastolph began candidly, "The little thing clearly isn't a she-hobbit, no matter how little a thing she is. But she's not as little as we are! But lo! Look at those dainty feet! How crude."

"Yes, very odd."

Gandalf inched closer, hiking up his robes just an inch, kneeling down on one knee onto the plush grass. He leaned against his staff, resisting the urge to take a page out of Fastolph's book and cocked his head to the side in confusion. Instead, a curious twinkle entered into his eyes.

Once again he reached forward, very carefully lifting an eyelid, revealing a vacantly staring eyeball, the iris the color that reminded him of honey in sunlight, not a dark brown, but something much lighter and almost warm. He sighed when he retracted his arm, studying the girl as ever before. She was dressed very simply, adorned in a very threadbare tunic the color of milkweeds, with white, dirtied leggings and a matching short-sleeved shirt. A belt was cinched loosely around her waist, too large and pocketed for her thin frame. Her feet bobbed with the current of the river, her comatose body momentarily swaying as a warm breeze rippled through the water. Her boots, Gandalf noted, appeared of Rohirrim design, a dark brown that came below the knees, a thin but hardy, supple leather with intricate scrolling along the shafts, the toes rounded with plated steal.

It was her left arm, however, that the wizard found to be both truly intriguing and worrisome. The entire length of the appendage was wrapped tightly in a bandage, from her upper arm until it had been bound around her palm, tied off at the wrist. The wrapping gave no indication of what lay beneath, no tints of pink of a healing wound, but was merely a very drenched piece of white cloth. Gandalf eyed it almost warily.

The wizard once again found himself reaching forward, ignoring how his instincts firmly told him that such action could be deemed foolhardy, to remove the wrapping. Instead, his ever-churning, finely-honed curiosity and urge for further knowledge burned within his fingertips. He was in the midst of slipping his fingers beneath the bandage when he felt a presence closing in on his direction.

Or, rather, many presences.

Gandalf sighed, having sensed that he was no longer alone with the two Peatfingers twins who were currently jabbering to each other, and began to carefully straighten.

As if on cue, a large, floppy, trapper-style hat abruptly appeared from behind a well-trimmed hedge. Gandalf could almost tangibly feel the lighthearted grin spreading across Bofur's face from behind his back, and nearly grinned himself when the dwarf spoke.

"Oi, Gandalf! Fancy meeting ya here. Spending quality time with the locals, aye?" he asked, bounding forward, the remainder of the dwarven company in the midst of catching up.

"Greetings, Bofur," Gandalf smiled, nodding in friendly recognition when the dwarf stopped at his side.

The ridiculously furred hat effectively cocked to the side, the dwarf in question peering down at the girl still afloat on the riverside. Bofur glanced from girl to wizard, wizard to girl, then to the Peatfingers twins who were gawking wide-eyed and opened mouthed (with maybe just a _little_ bit of drool involved) at the dwarf, then back once more at Gandalf.

He sighed once again, thrusting his wooden staff to Bofur, bending and rather effortlessly removed the girl from the shoreline. He was very careful with her, tucking an arm beneath her knees and supporting her back with the other. Her head rolled back, her saturated hair dripping heavily from thick tendrils and swaying as the wizard began to move. He noted that she had very arched eyebrows, ones that gave her an almost impish appearance even when unconscious, and her lips began to part from the turbulence of being carried by a wizard.

Bofur had yet to peal his eyes away from her.

"Wot's that you got there, Gandalf? A _girl_?" he questioned, then looked forward once his comrades had congregated along the pathway, all smiling in greeting to Gandalf. He hollered to them, "Oi, fellas! Gandalf's got himself a girl!"

Gandalf sighed long-sufferingly and muttered, "Honestly, Bofur…"

"She looks as though she had a drunken tumble into the river. Know I've had plenty myself. Wotcha going to do with her?"

"I think it's prudent we at least bring her to Bilbo's and tend what needs to be tended. I'm quite curious as to the reason why a full-grown woman washes ashore in the Shire, of all places," Gandalf answered, more to himself than anything. "Yes, quite curious."

Bofur raised his brows. "She coming with us?"

Gandalf held a breath as they neared the pathway leading towards Bag End and the start of their adventure, glimpsing down at the girl. "Well, like many things, that remains to be seen."


End file.
